apassingafternoon

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"Okay, then here's my answer." He took a deep breath, and with an effort, stripped away all those easy surface layers of humour and lightness and simple emotion. Spoke to her frankly, as he rarely did even to Roland or Alain. "I can't give him what he needs. Nor can she, not when all he sees looking at her is his own fuck-ups and the pyre she burnt on. We're... look, I don't understand it." His fists clenched at his sides, nails biting into the skin. He didn't look at her, but at the floor, a simmering intensity in his dark eyes. "We're too close. We're bound up with his ka, him and his fucking Tower. He needs something else, something that's not just his stupid fucking quest and the tragedy he's built himself." His jaw shifted a little under the skin, and he unclenched his fists, closed them again, looked up at the ceiling. "He used to smile. Not often, but he did. He was ever the serious one, but he joked, and he laughed at my clowning, and he was soft sometimes. And he cried. After Hambry, it was like all that dried up out of him. The only times I've seen him smile in five years or more have been with you. He loves you, and I love him, and that means this is my business, too." He wetted his lips, looking back at her with eyes almost as intense as Roland's could be. "And in case you're wondering, that's not me making you stay with him. I just..." Shrug. "You're not Susan. You give him something he needs. I dunno what it is, but you do."